Piranha

Every now and then, as rarely as sensitivities can allow, every movie lover must see an incredibly bad, disgustingly commercial, cliche-bespattered load of derivative cinematic offal. They don't make Showgirls every year, and its ilk are therefore treasured movie experiences.

Such an abomination is the sort of cineplex fodder one would expect from the Mr Hyde side of the Weinstein brothers, who delivered its first part in 2010 as Piranha 3D. Its special effects, of packs of blood-thirsty prehistoric piranha fish hunting nubile young bodies on their Spring Break, are so credibly good that the movie ends up being so gory it's wonderfully comic.

Credit must go where it's deserved, to Alexandre The Hills Have Eyes Aja, a "Splat Pack" horror movie director and son of French producer Alexandre Arcady, who funded his son's first two directing efforts, Furia (1999) and Haute Tension (2003).

Although Piranha is a re-make of Joe Dante's 1978 classic horror, Jaws was clearly the prime inspiration for the two credited "writers", Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg, a pair of TV talents whose prior movie was also a remake-cum-spoof, Sorority Row. This time, just in case no one sees the connection, the spoof's opening pre-credits scene shows Richard Dreyfuss fishing in a lake when an underwater earthquake unleashes a swarm of piranha and the conclusion of Dreyfuss's bit part.

It is hoped he collected a small fortune for such prostitution of his name and cinematic heritage. Ditto for Christopher Lloyd, who trundles his bug eyes into an aquarium set where he is the mildly mad boffin reincarnated from Back to the Future. Also resurrected from that classic is Elizabeth Shue, now the right age to play the sheriff who's the mother of three children, assisted by Ving Rhames as her deputy, who gets a Tarantino moment to wield a frantic piranha-killing machine (an outboard motor).

That's the oldie, feminist and black markets catered for: what's left? TV regular Jerry O'Connell continues to show that he never lived up to his promising start in movies (Stand By Me, 1986). His role as a camp straight porn film director is a highlight of ham in a film in which the acting is deliberately super-porcine (one assumes the acting technique didn't arise naturally, being kind to some of the actors).

Horror movie buffs would have been tickled gorily pink by the guest appearance of another "Splat Pack" director, Eli Hostel Roth, as a short-lived wet-shirt show host. Those shirts, and languid subaqua lesbian dance routines, were designed for hordes of pubescent porno fans, as was well-boobed English actress Kelly Brook.

Various young actors get the chance to flex muscles, grins and puppy fat: Cody Longo and Steven R McQueen have screen names to die for and acting abilities to unleash herds of cringes. There may have been some Latino extras in the blood-soaked white-fleshed waters of the Arizonan lake setting, but there seemed to be no blacks, possibly because their skin tones would have clashed with the set designers' red-hued colour scheme.

There were moments in that watery blood-fest when I laughed in manic disbelief. Have you ever seen a girl's bloody body suddenly break in two? Or watched two piranhas scrapping over a very distended circumcised penis, which the winner disgustedly expels undigested? Or a headful of female hair trapped in a speedboat's engine, causing its owner to be scalped?

There are more tributes and bows to horror and comedy movies than any movie buff can catch the first time, all gleefully packed into 80 minutes (and a budget of only $24 million). The remake ends with a slap-in-the-face promo that will have all lobotomised movie buffs salivating at the thought of 2011's release of Piranha 3DD.

The baby fish in this first instalment were excellent teeth-gnashing tail-whipping hi-speed tricks of the CGI trade, but the next school of fish will obviously be really big whoppers for one woman, her three kids and a single girl to battle. It's hard to know whether to sigh or cheer at the news that this first Piranha "only" grossed $80 million globally.